How are the stripes on a football field made

20.03.2016

Surely you have often admired the beautifully cultivated grass on football fields across Europe. On better fields the grass is perfectly mowed in the shape of alternating dark and light stripes or circles. But, did you know how that is done? These stripes are not complicated to make, so we recommend you to try it with your lawn.

The process, known as grass painting, requires only two tools: lawn mower and lawn roller. Many manufacturers now produce tractor mowers which have a roller behind the rare wheels, in order to make this process easier.

The strips are of dark and light green color. Different shades appear as a result to bending the grass in different directions. Grass that is bent in the direction opposite to the observing point shall reflect more daylight or artificial light, and therefore will have a lighter shade. On the other hand, the grass bent in the direction towards the observation point shall make less reflection and, thus, be darker. 

Some stadiums use stripes of different type of grass, to achieve even more distinctive pattern. When doing this at home, we suggest to just sprinkle the grass with water after rolling stripes, and that should accentuate them well enough.  

If you would like to stay up to date, please sign up for our mailing list here.